text:
Aspen, Colo.
THIRTY years ago last week, the Supreme Court handed down its Bakke decision, hoping to end the argument over the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admission. But with hindsight, it's clear that the justices mainly helped hasten the end of serious discussion about racial justice in America. As they set the stage for a lasting argument over who should get into college, the wound of race continued to fester, unhealed, and our politics moved on.
The ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke was the court's disorderly attempt in 1978 to bring some order to racially conscious admissions programs. The medical school of the University of California at Davis had set aside 16 spots for members of groups described as having been subjected to past discrimination.
The program was not unusual. Worried about lagging minority enrollments and prodded by the federal government, colleges across the country, having once taken race into account to keep certain groups out, had begun considering it as a factor in order to help members of those groups get in. A rejected applicant, Allan P. Bakke, argued that the program at Davis discriminated against him because he was white.
The Supreme Court was unable to make up its collective mind. Four of the justices would have upheld nearly all college affirmative action programs, and four others would have struck nearly all of them down. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.'s lone opinion therefore controlled the result.
Justice Powell proposed that university administrators could consider an applicant's race sometimes, anyway as long as they did not establish any racial quota, a term he inexactly defined. Baffled colleges consulted baffled lawyers. Justice Powell's laudable effort at compromise had sown confusion. Eventually, college administrators worked out their response: They would pay attention to the Bakke decision when it suited them the rest of the time they would ignore it.
In the ensuing years, America has come to treat racial injustice the same way. Having failed miserably in our efforts to undo the damage wrought by two centuries of slavery and another of Jim Crow, we threw up our hands and moved on. We still fight over affirmative action and pretend it means we're fighting over racial justice. We debate its pros and cons in order to avoid coming to grips with more fundamental challenges.
Those who suffer most from the legacy of racial oppression are not competing for spaces in the entering classes of the nation's most selective colleges. Millions of them are not finishing high school. We countenance vast disparities in education in America, in where children start and where they come out. And we do not even want to talk about it.
It was not always this way. From the early years of the nation's founding through somewhere in the mid-1970s, racial injustice was the fundamental moral question of American politics. Through wars and depressions, through scandals and disasters, the attention of the American people was repeatedly yanked back at times forcefully to the divide between black and white.
America fought over slavery. America fretted about Jim Crow and finally put a stop to it. During the 1960s, the nation tried out various remedies for its horrific history, including school integration and, especially during the Nixon administration, minority hiring programs. But by 1978, the nation's attention was slipping to other pressing moral questions abortion and the environment, for instance and has never quite slipped back.
It's true that, nowadays, some of the data on racial progress are rosy, and deserving of celebration. In the past decade alone, according to the Census Bureau, the number of black adults with advanced degrees has nearly doubled. More than half a million more black students are in college today than in the early 1990s. Since 1989, the median income of black families has increased more than 16 percent in constant dollars. In the years since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the black-white gap in test scores has narrowed, and is now smaller than it has ever been. The black middle class has never been larger.
For the first time, a major party is going to nominate an African-American candidate for president.
But it's also true that income stratification among African-Americans has increased, and the gap between the well-off and the poor is growing. One in three black students fails to finish high school, and nearly all of those who don't graduate are poor. Rates of violent crime are falling nationally, but the murder rate among young black men has risen sharply. America has two black communities, really, and one of them is falling further and further behind.
Alas, the structure of our politics makes it increasingly difficult to address the plight of those for whom race and poverty have become inexorably intertwined. For example, even though we know that children of married parents are significantly less likely to have trouble in school or to wind up poor or in prison, politicians on the left continue to oppose programs to encourage marriage.
Critics like to claim that other forces poverty, for example, or discrimination discourage marriage. No doubt they do. But marriage rates among African-Americans were significantly higher when segregation was everywhere and poverty rampant. The poverty rate among African-Americans has declined by a quarter since Bakke was decided, but the marriage rate has plummeted, and life for the children of the inner city is often nasty, brutish and short.
What about education? According to data from the Harvard Civil Rights Project, schools are significantly more segregated in the Northeast than in the South. The reason might be not overt racism, but the fact that affluent blue-state families are likely to move to the suburbs or send their children to private school. One obvious response would be to give poor families in the inner cities the money they need to purchase private education for their children. But this the Democratic Party steadfastly opposes.
For its part, the Republican Party, last seen fighting tooth and claw against efforts to extend the Voting Rights Act, continues to oppose what activists like to call throwing money at the problem of poverty. For both parties, affirmative action represents a way to pretend to be doing something what I have long called racial justice on the cheap.
Cheap is what we like. When political consultants say, "Programs for the poor are poor programs," what they mean is that poverty plays poorly on the stump. Even John Edwards, in trying to focus the nation's attention on poverty during his presidential campaign, proposed strategies like raising the minimum wage, which, while admirable, do nothing to help the poor and may, at the margins, even harm them.
University affirmative action programs, whatever their benefits, are no remedy for the problems of the black poor. Perhaps this is why Barack Obama has questioned publicly whether his children should benefit from them and also why leading voices on the black left Cornel West comes to mind have proposed that college admissions programs give preferential consideration based on economic class.
But restructuring affirmative action programs, although perhaps a good idea, would in the end, like the Bakke decision, amount to more tinkering around the edges. Unless racial justice once again becomes the centerpiece of American politics, with both parties willing to rethink their positions, those who are suffering most from our legacy of racial oppression will continue to fall further behind.


text:
For those who have used Serviio, you would know what I mean. It groups movies, actors and directors based on the first alphabet of its name. For example, both Johnny Depp and James Dean are grouped under the same folder:
This would significantly reduce the number of entries under the Actor folder. The current Actor folder is simply unusable for me as I have a huge movie collection.
I did mention this to Dennis a while back when we were ironing out some bugs on movie metadata but only a stop-gap solution was created for All Movies. However the same trick doesn't work on actors and directors.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Shopping For Kids Coupon Deals & Promo Codes
Birthdays, holidays, and all of the other days of the year: If you have kids, you'll need to buy stuff! That's why we've created the shopping for kids category – to help you find the best deals on products for your kids. (College isn't cheap, after all – save money while you can!) Our discounted products for kids include everyday items, like clothing, shoes, and school supplies, along with items that make shopping for kids fun, like new toys and gadgets. Stop back often, as inventory changes almost as quickly as your kids grow!
Past Deals (Now Expired)
Report a Problem
Please select the problem you are facing with this deal:
- Price Increased
- Price Decreased
- No longer available
- Expired
- Link doesn't work
- Suggestion
- Compliment
- Other
Add more details:
Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate it.
Enter your email address if you would like to receive a follow up.
Please Try Again


text:
Khronos Group Technology on Tour 2011
The Khronos Group is globetrotting in high gear to showcase Khronos technologies; including stops in Seattle, Daegu, Tokyo, Yokohama and Hong Kong. If you "just happen to be in the neighborhood," we cordially invite you to drop by for a visit to learn more about our APIs. A complete schedule is available online.


text:
Investors should stop freaking outJanuary 30, 2014: 1:06 PM ET
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.
Sit back and have a shot of Turkish Raki. Or a nice glass of Chenin Blanc from Cape Town. Maybe a Caipirinha so you can pretend you are on a beach in Rio.
In other words, relax.
Yes, there are legitimate worries about currency gyrations and economic turmoil in Turkey, South Africa and Brazil -- three of the so-called Fragile Five of emerging market economies. (India and Indonesia are the other two. I'm glad we've given up on acronyms. IBSIT? TIBIS? SIBIT? BIITS? And would we need to add the A for Africa or is S for South sufficient?)
Although the market bounced back nicely Thursday, traders have lately been acting like Peg, the little girl on the new PBS show "Peg + Cat" -- a favorite of Buzz, Jr. ... and his Dad.
In every episode, Peg gets unraveled by something and screams, "I'm TOTALLY freaking out!" But she's able to calm herself down by counting backwards from five. I suggest investors do the same.
This is not a panic situation. The stock market volatility of the past week is actually refreshing. It's proving to investors that stocks don't always go up. That's not the worst thing in the world. With the S&P 500 rising nearly 30% last year, stock valuations were starting to look stretched.
The woes of the Fragile Five (not to be confused with the old Fab 5 University of Michigan basketball team from the early 1990s ... although the thought of government leaders wearing baggy shorts like Chris Webber and Jalen Rose makes me chuckle) are a welcome reminder that traders are a fickle bunch.
Money has left these emerging markets mainly because they are no longer as attractive as they used to be now that the Federal Reserve has decided to cut back on its bond purchases. The same thing has happened to Argentina and its peso. (Should it get added to the list so we can dub the group the Shattered Six?)
The Fed's tapering makes the dollar mightier and, therefore, wreaks havoc on the lira, rand, real, rupee and rupiah. This appears to be a simple case of asset rotation as opposed to a true economic crisis.
Related: Worst is yet to come for Fragile Five
Of course, each individual emerging market has its own quirks. Some are more fragile than others due to political unrest. (It makes me wonder if some guy named Gordon Sumner needs to record a new version of "Fragile" -- with the benefits going to help bolster their large account deficits.)
But the good news here is that this may not be a contagion that's going to lead to another big global recession. In fact, emerging markets should ultimately wind up in better shape down the road because of what the Fed is doing.
Think about it. The Fed is only tapering because the U.S. economy is improving. We've now had two quarters in a row of solid GDP growth to back that up.
If the U.S. continues to rebound ... and if Europe and Japan follow suit ... then that can only be considered a good thing for emerging markets. Decoupling is a myth.
Strength in the three big developed world economies can only help lift emerging market economies, as American, European, Japanese consumers and businesses buy more stuff ... particularly commodities and raw materials.
An emerging market rebound is not going to happen immediately. And China is a huge wild card here. Everything can change if its banking problems become more severe.
Related: This is not a repeat of 1997 for emerging markets
But people have to stop tossing around words like contagion and crisis every time the U.S. stock market goes down more than 1% on any given day. Sure, investors seem to be pretty nervous.
CNNMoney's Fear & Greed Index is now showing levels of Fear. The index was in Extreme Greed territory a mere month ago.
However, if you look at one of the key components of our index, the CBOE Volatility Index or VIX (VIX), it shows that investors are nervous but not outright terrified.
While the VIX is up more than 20% so far this year, it's off a very low base. The VIX, which many on Wall Street still view as the preeminent fear gauge, is nearly 25% below the 52-week high set last October when investors were busy worrying about a possible U.S. debt default.
So even with this year's spike, you could still say that fear is in a bear market. And when you look back further, the current level of the VIX is nothing compared to the truly frightening days of the 2008 credit crisis.
The VIX is now hovering around 16. A general rule of thumb is that a value above 30 shows intense fear. In the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the VIX hit a peak of nearly 90! It's been relatively calm the past few years as stocks have rallied.
What's going on now is PG-13 fear. It's mildly unsettling. It's not NC-17 fear with graphic images that should make you scared to turn off the lights at night.
Reader Comment of the Week! It's been a trying week for investors. But one blue chip tech stock has held up quite well amidst the choppiness: Microsoft (MSFT). That led to this gem of a tweet about the company's search for a successor to Steve Ballmer.
Ha! Good one, Maria. But something tells me that once Microsoft does name a new CEO, investors won't be thrilled to see him or her leave that quickly. And for what it's worth, I still think Microsoft should hire Adobe (ADBE) chief Shantanu Narayen!


text:
211 N. East Street | Mason, Ohio 45040 |(513) 398-0474
Many of our school district's success stories are possible because of the support of talented people and organizations in our community. Our community continuously steps up to update our facilities and technology, and to provide rich opportunities for Mason students.
This year, Mason High School provided deeper opportunities for students to partner with area businesses through guest speaker/site visits, job shadowing, and internships at ABC Pediatric Network, Assurex Health, CMO Axis, and UC Health West Chester Hospital. By participating in these experiential learning opportunities, students increase knowledge, develop essential workplace skills, cultivate a civic mindset and explore career options through direct experience and focused reflection outside of the traditional academic setting.
Booster organizations, parent committees, and civic organizations like Kiwanis and Rotary invest heavily in our students - volunteering countless hours to coordinate musical, theatrical, athletic and After Prom events, recognizing student accomplishments, and ensuring that all students (regardless of economic ability) have the opportunity to participate in school activities and events.
In its eight years of existence, the Mason Schools Foundation has provided over $600,000 in grants to take students "above and beyond." These funds pay for programs that otherwise could not exist, and often spur innovation as Mason pioneers take risks and try new approaches. In addition, volunteerism by our booster clubs and families greatly supports student activities and school goals.
The Taste of Mason, sponsored by Mason City Schools Diversity Council, showcases our community's diversity, and encourages community members to enjoy exciting offerings from many ethnic, and independent Mason restaurants. At the Taste of Mason, guests sample a new dish, catch up with old friends, and get mesmerized by incredible talent from multicultural acts featuring our students and community members such as classical Indian dance, performances by the Mason Chinese School, Chinese/Vietnamese Lion dance, Colombian dancers, and Mexican folk dance.


text:
In Search of Lost Time
Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light...
– T. S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"
My footsteps take me from room to room of the lonely cottage, just as it was before I'd climbed to that attic and entered that cabinet. Was there a way of going back to erase it all from my mind? Would it let me look at the world and once more see its light, its colour? All is dull and dimmed as though my sleep was haunted not by that face, but by the Dementors, drinking in my soul through gaping, hollow mouths.
All is confused. I wish only to sleep without the burning memories and scarring dreams.
I wander through the rooms as I always did when sleep would not come. To think that these rooms had once–
It is still too impossible to comprehend the meaning of my face. The scars that run far deeper than the surface tell their tale too well. I am her, and she is me. Or is it more accurate to say that I will be her, and she was always already me?
One of the rooms is not empty. It is the usual room, the only place I see him now, my dream-ridden brain limiting him to this place. The furniture is gone, the floors are thick with dust, and the mantle is scarred by the flames that had consumed his body, maimed my face. Once, in the time before, I ran my fingers along those marks, wondering when and how they had come to be there, not knowing that–
"I've been waiting a long time."
He stands by the fire, leaning against the mantle with a studied negligence that fails to disguise his discontentment.
I stumble forward, the foot that has not bothered me of late at last showing signs of strain. He does not move, only watching, his eyes dark smudges of shadow smouldering beneath his light brow, yellow hair hanging low over his forehead. Even from the door, I can see the muscles in his face rippling as he struggles to contain his emotion.
"I'm sorry."
They are the only words I have. There are others, but I cannot say them, not to a shadow of my mind. When I say them, it will only be to the real, living flesh.
He catches me before I fall, but I do not know how it is possible. We are so close, so suddenly, my head spinning as I take in his scent, feel the warmth of his body, all the while knowing that this is a dream. This is not real, and yet, as his face leans toward mine, I find him the most real thing of all, more real than I.
But his face, it changes. It leans closer, and grows older, greyer, and older still, deep lines stretching across his brow and around the sides of his mouth, his hair fading to a filthy white, his eyes hollowing into his skull. Arms grip me too close to his cadaverous face, the mouth now a gaping, toothless hole. He smells of death, a cloying scent that sticks to my nostrils and raises the bile in my throat.
I shudder, but cannot close my eyes. My eyelids will not move. I am trapped here against the... the...
Truth. That is it.
He is dead. He has been dead for thirty years. I cannot escape that. I cannot escape time.
Still the face approaches mine, the now-fleshless mouth seeking its goal. Hair still sprouts from the flesh-patched skull, his lidless eyes blankly staring. Will I next see the arms that bind me to him as charred and blackened bones? Will they fall at my feet, shattering as they reach the ground? When will he turn to dust and vanish through the open window?
That is what I have loved. A man long dead. The man that I destroyed.
My eyes open at last to the fading sound of my cry. They will come soon to check on me, perhaps to check that I still live, that I've not found a way to make myself as dead as he. They do not trust me. I do not trust myself.
The pillow is wet with the tears that stream down my face. I shudder at the memory of that dream, once, then again, unable to stop. Mum is there with Uncle Neville. In her hand is the potion that will bring sleep without dreams. Why can't there be one that offers dreams without sleep? To dream and dream and sleep no more. To dream of him, not as monster, not as dead, but living. All of those years in between, the years that I have not yet lived.
The potion is tart and difficult to swallow.
"It will be better once you sleep soundly. You need a good rest. No more dreams."
She is not smiling, though the hand that pushes back the damp hair from my eyes is gentle. Sadness or anger, perhaps it is both that she feels. She will blame herself for the nightmare.
They have allowed me back into the cottage to scourge the demons and cleanse the spirit. Ever-hopeful, under Healer Patil's advice, they let me live as I did before. I tend the plants; I watch the sunset over the distant trees; I wander the halls at night, listening for the ghosts that are not there. He is dead. I must remember. He was never a ghost, only a memory.
There is one ghost whom still I seek. The portrait that cannot be found.
We have taken the things down from the attic, spreading them across the floor of the walnut room with its scarred mantelpiece and empty square where the portrait once hung. Robes are piled to one side; the jewellery box, again filled with its treasures, sits in a corner, piles of books and parchments huddling beside it. Too many times I have wandered into the room since to touch the embroidered sleeves and hold the ring in the palm of my hand, unable to make the next move and prove what I already know to be true.
There is a noise by the window, and I see that, while my mother has left, Uncle Neville remains. He turns something over in his fingers, something so small that I cannot see it in the dim light from the candle at my bedside.
"Uncle Neville?" My voice is so small and insignificant that I will be surprised if hears it.
When he turns, his face is in shadow, but there is something about his silence that makes me believe that I have seen such an expression before, a face filled with the distant pain of long buried memories.
He holds out his hand and I see the neatly folded gum wrapper. Drooble's Best. My brothers' favourite.
I meet his shadowed eyes, my heart pausing as the light caught on his sandy hair.
"Your mother worries about you, far more than you'd imagine."
I swallow, looking away. To constantly wish that I could be away from this time is to wish myself away from my family, the people who care, who love me. It's a cold and selfish thing for me to do. And yet is there a future for me here? I stare at the gum wrapper, knowing that it was a gift from his mother, Alice. How many he has, I could never guess, but he has kept every one. She too is dead. She too lived in the world of dreams.
"Why am I like this?" I ask aloud. "Why is it so hard to live?"
He places the gum wrapper on the table beside the bed.
"It depends on what you have to live for."
After a pause, he begins to leave. My voice arrests him.
"Uncle Neville?"
When he turns, I see the candlelight on his face. He is the same professor of old who fosters in each student a love for life and all the things within it. Bright memories of the greenhouse at Hogwarts cast a light across the darkness that surrounds me.
"Yes, Lily?"
"Do you know why he would have left you this cottage?"
He steps back into the room, but even then, he is not able to see my face behind my veil of hair. I'm all in shadow, inside and out. The nightmare still hangs in the back of my eyes, and I pull the blankets close around me for all that it is summer, that summer unlike any other.
"He trained my parents and knew them well, perhaps even like a father." After some hesitation, he continues, "Moody was among the best of men, no matter what others said of him." He cannot disguise the awe within his voice, and I love him all the more for it. A longer pause ensues, and then: "You gave him what he deserved, Lily. An honourable end."
He shuts the door behind him.
Days and nights pass once more. There are no dreams as fraught with horror as that one, and still I do not find the portrait. Uncle Neville explains that the cottage had been somewhat cleaned by the time of his arrival after the war, that the scorch marks in the walnut room seem incomplete. I close my eyes over and over in order to remember what occurred on my return to the cottage. It must have been me, but how? The fire must have caught on my robes and, apparating into that room, the freshest in my mind, it spread to the wood and the... the...
The chairs, the table, the cups with their cold dregs of coffee, and the portrait that hung above the fireplace. She must have burned.
I put my hand to my face and take deep breaths. She is gone. No scathing envy, no screaming defeats, no mirror into which I can see what I will become. So much destroyed in a single night, hardly more than an hour. Him. Her. Me. All our fates entwined in flame.
In the rooms people come and go, their smiles unable to hide their pain and pity. How I embarrass them with my shattered foot and shattered mind. Their eyes lock on my scars and cannot seem to look away, their words growing flustered, their faces pink with shame. I am a real oddity now, not merely the only daughter of the Boy Who Lived, but also a freak, just as the Lily who came before.
I watch the sunset fall behind the trees and climb the stairs while my family exchange uncomfortable glances and whispered anxieties. My eye has caught Uncle Neville's before I leave. He does not judge; he knows. The gum wrapper has not left my bedside table.
It, like me, waits.
The night falls with silence, the cottage settling to sleep around me. The potion sits by my bed beside the wrapper of gum, unconsumed. I do not close my eyes, but stare at the distant ceiling until I can be sure that no one else is awake. After so long in this place alone, I know every sound the old wood makes as it settles, every cricket's voice as it releases his harmonies to the heavens, every ghost's mournful moans as it roams the corridors.
Too often that ghost has been me.
I remember how it was before I breathed in the air of different ages, heard the voices of those long dead, and felt the touch of a man now turned to ash and dust. How well the cottage became my solitude, all its memories, all the lives it has held, yet it remains as the world surges on its relentless course. It remains, but must I?
In the months of healing, it has grown easier to walk. The stick was lost somewhere, and I have taken a lesser one of simple, sturdy oak, perhaps because it reminds me of him. I cannot fall when I have it in hand, but sometimes I feel the ghost of his bracing arms as I pass by that window, and I turn aside to speak of Quidditch and anything that is real to prevent the logical progression of my imagination from racing ahead, leaving me to drown in its wake.
The dreams, the memories, the ghosts, I am immersed in their power.
I enter the walnut room, her trunks and belongings mere clusters of an existence. An odd pale moon floods the room with light, the traces of its autumnal forebodings casting shades of gold onto her things. The ring, so tarnished and worn, glitters on its velvet bed, beckoning.
This is not a dream. My heart beats too hard against my chest. I feel a slight jab of pain in my ankle. The heavy smell of must and moth balls irritates my nostrils, threatening a sneeze. I pinch the bridge of my nose to let the threat pass, my eyes never leaving the ring. There is no sound but that of my breath, silence making the room a hollow cave.
I reach for the ring and slip it onto my finger.
No resistance. No clashing bells and wailing sirens to alert the world to my transgression.
A moment passes before I realize that I am twisting the ring round and round my finger. I tear it off and throw it on the floor, stumbling backwards, just barely able to keep myself from falling. The ring bounces with a high-pitched ting and disappeared between the trunks.
The inscription. I had forgotten the message, but I remember the half-worn letters, as though its wearer had twisted it around her finger, perhaps expecting news of a distant mission or the sound of his key in the door, always wondering when the next absence would be broken by an owl, telling her of the last thing she wishes to hear. Who could blame her for going mad, not if the seed is already there and had always been there, lingering behind the facade of the elegant wife of an Auror.
Staggering under the weight of the vision, I collapse against the window frame, my fingers scrabbling against the latch for air, anything to escape the strength of her presence. How easy it is to see her there by the fireplace, eyes staring into space, ignoring the book in her lap, a pot of coffee at her side. She prefers the chair to the bed, that empty gulf where he would lay a black hole on her consciousness. It is a painfully domestic scene. That cannot be me. I will not let it.
The late-summer air filters through my lungs, but it fails to clear my head.
This is far worse than the dreams. They are mere exaggerations, my imagination playing tricks on me. But this is too real, this image of the woman left behind, alone in the cottage. Even if she fills her days with work, her nights are dark and alone, as they have always been.
Is that all I will have? Is her fate also mine? I know the future; I am the future. Can I alter it, somehow? Is time a thing that is locked in place, a set of threads that stretches across all of history, tangling together at certain moments, casting shadows over certain lives, marking them for sacrifice?
I must not be alone again. I cannot live in this world of dreams, believing in those fleeting moments when he needed me above all else, that I alone could keep him from insanity, that I could save him. I also remember a moment of running through black alleys, his hand crushing mine in passion and excitement, each cell of my body racing with anticipation as I imagined what was to come, all of it lost again, so soon, too soon. These things ought to be mere delusions even though they are more real than anything in this world, here where there is so little to hold on to, so little I can call my own.
So this is the fate of the daughter of the Boy Who Lived and the only Weasley girl in generations. Such greatness must surely skip generations. Where is my happy ending? Where, when will I find it?
I look into the night for comfort, the moon full upon my face, its light casting shadows on the lawn below.
There is a shadow out of place, a dim figure that glides across the meadow and vanishes into the trees.
A single moment of hesitation. My heart wavers, then concedes to the ghost.
I flee from the room at a half-hobbling pace, keeping enough of my wits about me to don a cloak and soft-soled shoes so that I will not take my death in the cool mist that hangs low about the woods. It hides the figure I know to be just ahead, but it does not hide the narrow path of firmly-packed dirt, once traversed by the great poets of two centuries before. I knock my stick against overhanging plants as pain shoots up my leg. Pausing to lean against a tree, I gasp for breath and listen for any sign of movement ahead.
Nothing. There is only silence.
My heart plummets. I shiver, pulling the cloak around me. It was only a dream, another dream. I now live in that world of dreams that some call madness, reality hidden in the mists of a fractured mind. If only they knew how I envied them, my parents, my brothers, my cousins. They drift further and further away until I can no longer see their faces, their pity, their frustration. How can I not understand that I'm only hurting myself, they ask; why can't I drag myself out of this and find something else, a life of my own?
The moon emerges from behind a cloud, illuminating the glade in which I stand. It is a magical place, moonlight glistening on dewy leaves and spider webs, the forest resting in silent slumber. The moonlight has cast a strange shadow in the centre of the glade, where vines rise in an unnatural mound. Blinking, I see that a hand extends from the ivy, its fingers beckoning.
Somehow, I was always meant to come here.
Time. Time is here. All time converging in a single place.
The only sounds are the beating of my heart and the crunching of my feet against the forest floor as I step forward, tentative, fearing, but unable to resist. Something calls me, something sets my nerves at ease, though my heart still pounds as though to remind me that I still live.
Wand raised, I speak and the vines pull away, retracting along the ground. A serene face meets my gaze, its blank eyes staring into the trees, its wings spread high, as though it had only landed to greet me. At its feet is a polished stone rising from the rotting leaves of years past and, with bated breath, I push them away.
"Lumos," I whisper, fearful of the sound my voice makes.
A sob spills from my throat, but I cannot turn away. I cannot run, my feet rooted to the place beneath which I lie.
Yes, where my bones were placed so long ago.
d. June 3, 1971,
age 47
From the ashes of death I will rise again.
My legs can no longer support my weight; I collapse into the fallen the leaves, the vines cushioning my fall, their snaky tendrils no different from the plants I came to the cottage to tend. Her plants. Mine. This is not madness. This is no dream.
I lie across my own forgotten grave in the shadow of the guarding angel, all the events of the past few months churning over and over in my mind, the puzzle pieces, now in place, producing the image I should have seen from the beginning. There is nothing I ever could have done to prevent my fate.
"Do you now understand what I have done?"
The voice emerges from the mist. I know it, but all familiarity eludes me in the turmoil that rages within my head. I can only see shadows, the moon hidden once more behind a cloud. Then she appears, a black shape, cloaked as I am, red hair falling lankly over her shoulders, a flash of pale flesh where the face would be.
"You are... you..." My voice breaks. I remember the portrait, the taunts, the insults, the hatred shaking in her voice, her screams ringing in my ears. I see the flash of hatred in Moody's eyes as he looked upon the empty space where his wife should have been. She had retreated to the shadows, and I thought – I had so believed – that he could not have loved her, nor she him, but all along... all this time....
She pushes back the hood of her cloak, and I finally see her face.
No mirror could be like this. The face of pain gazes back, serene in the knowledge that, while she will soon die, the cycle will come again. I will live. All becomes clear. The notes are hers. She has taken me through his life and to his death to do what she could not. She has stolen time, and thus time is taking back what it is owed. Any hatred I have harboured for her, all that jealousy, that flaring, ghastly anger, fades.
"Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you will change what you become. I thought so once...."
The moon reappears, casting a ghostly glow around her so that I see the purple scars, the white strands amongst the red, the tear stains on her face. All that she has done has been for me, for him. All that is lost is hers.
"But why?" My voice is so small, almost lost in the silence. "It's against all the rules of time for us to meet. You're here, and I don't know why, not with the cost."
She does not stay silent for long. With careful steps, revealing only the slightest limp, she nears the angel to touch to the impassive face.
"I came to see my family again, to find again all that I left behind. To see them at the last... before I–" Her eyes gaze off into the darkness.
She is too much like the statue, her skin like sculpted marble, her eyes dim and blank. She is and is not like my mother, recollections of my grandmothers written across her face. She is myself, and yet she is other. It is difficult to look at her. She is the nightmare from which I have run for so long.
"But to leave him–" My attempts to speak are futile. My voice dies away.
"Whether you choose to remain in this time or return to his, Alastor will go mad. He will lose everything. That can't be changed." Her voice is low like rumbling thunder. "You will sacrifice yourself to a cause that will only fail in the end."
She pauses to gaze at me, her face contorting in another spasm of pain.
"But if you were to ask me again, I would still make the same choice. I would still return."
At last she falters, her eyes closing fast against the sight of me, bracing herself against the angel that guards her grave and mine. Constant vigilance to the end.
"I would give so much to make your choice again."
There is nothing that I can offer, no words to console the pain of decades, the pain of knowing, all along, of one's own death and, much worse, the death of one who is loved above all else. I feel the pull of that love as I watch her. I see his face as he stands across the room, glancing out at a war-torn city. I smell the great blue flower he places in my hand. I hear his voice as he calls out my name. I see his eyes as I shut the door upon him. He is everywhere, everything. For him, I would play the game of time.
A game that I would–
My eyes catch sight of the grave once more.
I will die only to be born again. I will die only to find him again. I will be there at the beginning and at the end. That is not a lost game.
When I raise my eyes, she is gone. A listless breeze brushes against my face as I stare into the woods. There is no choice for me to make. It was made for me the moment I stepped into the cabinet for the first time to enter his world. My world. My future. I am out of time no longer.
A smile pulls at my scar, but my heart is light.
Now for the end.
Author's Note: The title of this chapter is an English translation of Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.
Track This Story: Feed
Write a Review
Get access to every new feature the moment it comes out.Register Today!


text:
June 6, 2015
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (June 7, 2015)
Posted by Fr. Dominic Danh Tran, SDB at 3:51 PM
Labels: 2015, B, Corpus Christi
No comments:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
This blog intends to provide readers an opportunity to be nourished by the Word of God. It invites readers to read, reflect and pray the Gospel passage that they will hear during the upcoming Sunday's Liturgy. With the commentaries provided, readers have the possibility of studying and meditating on the Word. Finally, readers are invited to share their reflections, thus creating an on-line lectio divina/faith sharing group, and so sustaining each other in the faith and the love for God's Word.


text:
IG says Louisiana can't prove money was spent to elevate homes.
Nearly $700 million in federal aid for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is unaccounted for, according to a new report from a government watchdog.
More than 24,000 homeowners in Louisiana who received millions in disaster recovery grants after the 2005 storms either did not comply with the terms of the aid, were nonresponsive, or did not provide sufficient documentation of how they spent the money as of August 2012, the Housing and Urban Development Department's inspector general found.
"Therefore the state did not have conclusive evidence that the $698.5 million in Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funds had been used to elevate homes," the March 2013 report stated. The IG was following up on its March 2010 review of Louisiana's elevation incentive program, part of the state's $9 billion Road Home Program to help people rebuild after Katrina and Rita. The $940.5 million elevation incentive program offered eligible homeowners grants of up to $30,000; in return homeowners agreed to comply with elevation requirements and with building and manufactured housing codes in their area within three years, as well as maintain homeowner and flood insurance.
Louisiana, which developed a program to monitor homeowners who received federal funds and identify those who haven't met the program requirements, is working with HUD to ensure greater compliance and responsiveness, said Patrick Forbes, executive director of the state's Office of Community Development. "Rather than immediately embarking on the process of recapturing funds from all applicants who do not currently have all required compliance documentation in their files, [the state office] believes it is prudent to bring more applicants into compliance through ongoing file completion, elevation activities and working with HUD to approve and implement action plan amendments, reserving grant recovery for those applicants who cannot achieve compliance through these and or other means," Forbes wrote in response to the IG report.
The IG findings have prompted concern over how the government plans to manage the nearly $16 million in disaster recovery aid for the Northeast after October 2012's devastating megastorm Sandy. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., sent an April 1 letter to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan asking how the department will ensure that money is properly spent and accounted for. "HUD must be diligent in its oversight of elevation funds as they are granted, and not years later," Coburn wrote. President Obama designated Donovan to oversee the federal response to Sandy.
Disasters create different categories of need and the government's way of prioritizing those needs can perplex victims as well as federal and state officials. HUD and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for instance, are only two of several agencies that administer disaster assistance, and figuring out who is eligible for what kind of aid often is as confusing and overwhelming as the disaster itself.


text:
|Home :: Hotels :: My Account :: My Basket
The newly restored Hotel Habana 612 opens its doors to guests on 1st December 2014.
Habana 612 hotel is located just a few steps from Plaza Vieja & offers twelve spacious & stylishly decorated rooms. Its perfect location & beautiful interior make it the ideal hotel for enjoying and discovering Old Havana.
Hotel Habana 612 is run by the Office of the City Historian of Havana through its company called Habaguanex. All its profits are reinvested in the restoration of the city's historical centre.
© 2014 Nigel Hunt
Not Reviewed By Nigel Yet
Reviewed on 14 May 2015 by Summer Z from United Kingdom
I stayed at Habana 612 for 5 nights at the end of April 2015. The hotel is brand new & very clean. The rooms are quite essential but very comfortable, with all what you need and a great modern design. Breakfast was excellent, all products were fresh & the food presentation was admiring, however during my stay natural juice was not available. I had one lobster dinner at Hotel Habana 612, which I recommend.
Location is perfect, right in the hearth of Old Havana.
The staff is nice, knowledgeable & ready to help in any circumstances.

Average rating from 1 review(s) of this hotel
Air conditioning
Old building restored
Reception staff speak Spanish, English, French, German, Italian
Shops max 2min walk
Description and facilities details coming soon.
Air conditioning
Hot & cold water
Internet by WiFi to your PC
King size bed
Minibar / Fridge
Satellite TV
Twin beds
More Hotels in Old Havana:
UK Sales :: Audrey :: +44 20 7498 8555 or 0800 298 9555
USA & Canada Sales :: Jeffery or Bastien :: Toll Free 888 361 9555
Havana Tourist Center :: Idelsis :: +53 7 863 9555
(less than 10 days)


text:
The weekend's other new wide release, Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan's "Around the World in 80 Days," came in at No. 9 with $6.8 million for the weekend and $9.6 million since opening Wednesday.
On a personal note of glee, Riddick is on a fast and furious (hahaheehee) plummet out of the top ten:
Do any of you go to the theatre more than once, or do you go...and wait out the DVD/VHS offering?
The only movies I have seen more than once at a theater in the last 5 years has been Episodes I and II and all three LOTR movies which I saw twice each
Ususally, we go and then buy the DVD if we liked the movie.Multiple veiwings are a rare occurance these days, usually reserved for SW, LOTR...
Page created in 0.082 seconds with 17 queries.


text:
LISA Pathfinder faces technology challenges set by Einstein
LISA Pathfinder is set to be a spacecraft in a class of its own. Officially designated a technology-development mission, its designers are effectively facing the challenge of bringing one of Albert Einstein's thought experiments to life.
On his way to developing his 1915 Theory of General Relativity, Einstein wondered how an object would fall through space if it was truly free of all external influences.
The answer, the physicist decided, is that instead of moving along a straight line it would actually trace a slight curve called a 'geodesic' - in the same way that airliners follow great circles over Earth's rounded surface - because gravity warps the underlying structure of space and time.
Later, in one of his famous 'Gedanken' or thought experiments, Einstein imagined a way to establish the curvature of spacetime, by exchanging photons of light between two free-falling particles moving along geodesics. If the experiment could be done on a large enough scale – in practice, millions of kilometres – any variation of curvature would have a measurable effect on the light's frequency.
This would be a way of detecting one particularly dramatic prediction of Einstein's General Relativity theory: proposed spacetime ripples known as 'gravitational waves', emanating from exotic astronomical objects such as colliding black holes and compact binary star systems.
In mid-2013, two years shy of General Relativity's hundredth birthday, LISA Pathfinder will be performing the first part of this experiment for real, though within the much tinier scale of a single spacecraft.
The aim for this mission is simply to test to unprecedented accuracy the underlying assumption of Einstein's thought experiment: that free-falling objects do indeed follow geodesic lines through space.
The difficulty in carrying out this deceptively simple experiment comes in the need to bring all outside forces acting on the free-falling bodies down to the bare minimum.
This list of perturbations to avoid includes the internal gravitational pull from the spacecraft structure, the slight but tangible push of sunlight itself – 'solar radiation pressure' – as well as any slight vibration or residual magnetic influences which might otherwise emanate from the body of the spacecraft hosting the experiment.
Internal formation flying
LISA Pathfinder will minimise the effects of external perturbations by operating 1.5 km million away from its homeworld, going into orbit around Lagrange Point 1 (L1). There is no simple fix to overcome the other forces on the list, however – only rigorous engineering will do. The mission will have to be the most precisely controlled spacecraft ever built – or set of spacecraft, to be more precise.
The truth is that LISA Pathfinder can actually be considered as a formation-flying mission – except two tiny spacecraft will actually be flying inside a third. Two 4.6-cm-cubed 'test masses' will float freely within a pair of chambers 35 cm apart in the heart of the main spacecraft. Their relative positions will be tracked by a laser measuring system operating down to atomic scales of accuracy.
"We are seeking to keep the geodesic motion of our test masses as pure as possible," explained Bengt Johlander, Payload Engineer for LISA Pathfinder.
"The masses are free to move – and if our experiment is set up correctly they should move together in concert – while the surrounding spacecraft is guided by their motion to follow in the same direction. It is impossible to have zero perturbations, but we have fixed a precise budget for disturbances we will stay within."
Preparing the way for LISA
The purpose is less to create geodesic motion for its own sake than to flight-test technologies and techniques for an even more ambitious mission: putting the LISA into LISA Pathfinder. Planned for later this decade, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission will be a much more complete recreation of Einstein's gedanken: a joint effort between ESA and NASA to search for gravitational waves in the way Einstein outlined.
LISA's trio of spacecraft will fly five million km apart, but remain linked via laser beams to detect even the slightest change in position between them.
Using the same principle of far-distant reflective surfaces linked by laser, several gravitational wave observatories have been built on the ground, but no detections have been made so far. But Earth's seismic noise disturbs these detectors over seconds-long timescales, a fact that limits them to looking for higher-frequency gravitational waves from smaller astronomical objects, such as neutron stars and small black holes.
However, deep space opens a new window to the low-frequency gravitational wave spectrum with which LISA will observe, among other phenomena, the most powerful events in the Universe: the collision and merger of super-massive black holes.
"LISA Pathfinder is far too small in scale to be able to detect gravitational waves itself, but it will prove the feasibility of the cutting-edge technology needed to make LISA a reality," added Johlander.
"Although in practice LISA's performance will need to be even tighter than its predecessor in order to succeed."
Underlining its testbed character, LISA Pathfinder was originally designated 'Small Mission for Advanced Research in Technology-2' (SMART-2,SMART-1 having been ESA's 2003 ion-thruster mission to the Moon). A daunting number of new technologies are being mastered so the mission can perform as envisaged.
This article continues...


text:
- Emerging Markets Daily
Telecom Italia Pressured To Sell Brazilian Telecom; Stifel Downgrades TIM, UBS Maintains Buy
- Order Reprints
- Print Article
Telecom Italia (TI)'s biggest shareholder, Telefonica SA (TEF), increased its stake from 46% to 70%, pressuring the Italian telecom to dispose its Brazilian asset, TIM Participações (TSU), the second largest telecom there.
But Telecom Italia does not want to sell TIM. Bloombergreports:
Chief Executive Officer Franco Bernabe reiterated today that he's against a sale of Latin American assets. Speaking at a parliamentary hearing in Rome, he said a disposal of Telecom Italia's Brazilian or Argentinian businesses would hurt the company's international profile and cannot take place in the near term. The two countries accounted for almost 40 percent of Telecom Italia's 2012 revenue.
TIM's U.S. ADR has ramped up quickly on expectations that it would be sold. Stifel questions this assumption and decides to downgrade TIM. Here are analysts Christopher King and Josh James:
Following TSU's 9.9% run-up yesterday (S&P500 down 0.3%) and a 25% increase MTD (S&P500 up 3.9%), we are lowering our rating on the shares to Hold as the stock has exceeded our target price.
While the recent run-up is largely due to speculation concerning a subsequent sale of TIM Brasil, we question ultimate timing, valuation and the potential buyers of the asset, given the state of the Brazilian telecom industry and the regulatory environment.
Bloomberg reports the Brazilian regulator may actually prefer a new comer instead of breaking up TIM, meaning, a deal is more likely to be done:
Brazil's telecommunications regulator would prefer a sale of Tim Participacoes SA (TIMP3), the country's second-largest mobile-phone company, to a breakup of the operator, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Anatel, as the watchdog is called, wants to maintain Brazil's four-carrier market and would welcome a foreign operator such as Vodafone Group Plc (
) or AT&T Inc. (
) to acquire Tim.
An outright acquisition would be easier to do than a break-up.
UBS thinks Telecom Italia is not going to sell TIM without a handsome premium and maintains a Buy rating:
TI to consider the disposal of TIM Brasil only if a significant premium is achieved (>50%)
A break-up, though harder to do, would be better for the crowded industry, says UBS:
The organic slowdown, high competition and growing capex requirements in Brazil make in-market consolidation very desirable, with relevant upside sector wide. On the other hand, the entrance of a new capitalized player could push sector returns further down.
But based on the Bloomberg report, the government does not have the will or interest to do that right now.


text:
Last edited: 31 May 2010
The Hybrid Solar-Biomass Cook Stove is an innovative efficient wood stove that also incorporates a solar reflector. It is the invention of Dr. Arvind Chel of the Center for Energy Studies, IIT Delhi, India. Research is being done in cooperation with Duke University, USA, under the umbrella group of Mango Solar Energy Service.
The Hybrid Solar-Biomass Stove burns all biomass varieties, including wood. The combustion chamber focuses the flame and forces the gases to mix with the flame, which increases efficiency and decreases harmful emissions. The solar component consists of an insulated chamber that fits on top of the biomass stove and a solar reflector that sits on top of this chamber to direct sunlight inside. The combination of these technologies will reduce fuel costs and harmful emissions.
The hybrid solar biomass cook stove is user-friendly and will provide the flexibility to use the solar component during sunlit daytime, and biomass during night time, independent of seasonal variations. This novel cook stove can make fried food products, which is not possible using box or panel style solar cookers.
This clean efficient cook stove has enormous potential in Indian villages which are suffering from inefficient biomass cook stoves. The target customers are spending daily Rs.12 to Rs.25 on cooking fuel daily. In contrast, the hybrid biomass solar cook stove requires daily Rs.6 to Rs.12 for biomass fuel. A prototype stove is currently being built at Duke University.
Contact[edit | edit source]
- See Arvind Chel.


text:
Raiditem is the most quality site for WOW Gold & other game items buying.
Login | Sign Up | ( 0 item ) | Contact us | Sell To Us | Live Chat
Wildstalker Helmet Heroic Item Level 195
1. You will get Wildstalker Helmet Heroic Item Level 195.
2. You need to provide your account.
3. Your character's level should be 110.
4. ETA: 1-3 CDs.
Tips: The item drops on its drop rate. Drop rate increases with Seal of Broken Fate.
Kindly Reminder:Possible account termination when using illegal leveling or illegally obtained gold.


text:
Some stories are better told from the end. Being an avid reader of stories, I know that the good ones reveal what you had hoped for as they unfold: a great plot, fascinating characters, and amazing chapters that make up the book of life as they take you on the journey back in time.
Here is "the end" of this story: I am standing in a warehouse in Panorama City surrounded by 18,000 books neatly packed in boxes. This is a gift from the estate of the late Elliot Sachs of Santa Barbara, generously donated to the Frances-Henry Library by the executrix, Ms. Doris Sturgess, through the mediation of a few good people (another amazing story to be told another time).
About a month before my first "visit" of what is now the largest gift this library has ever received, I knew nothing about Elliot Sachs or his family, and when the initial contact was made, I did what every cautious librarian would do: I researched the subject.
In addition to the fact that he was a professor of Political Science in the UC system, I was told by Ms. Sturgess that his father was a rabbi in Santa Monica, having moved there in the early 50s from Toronto, Canada. My initial research revealed a family saga fit to be "treated" and produced as a mini-series in this tinsel-town of ours: a young immigrant from Lithuania, Samuel Sachs, arriving in New York at the beginning of the 20th century, possibly with his parents, with a good probability that the father, Yehudah, was a rabbi in Lithuania. Samuel is ordained by JTS in 1916, and after receiving his B.A. from Columbia University, he is invited in 1926 by congregation Goel Tzedek in Toronto to serve as their rabbi. Somewhere on this time-line he marries Florence [later "find" her cookbook and recipes], and they have two children. One of them, Elliot-Elijah, is born in 1933 [later "find": Bar Mitzva Book of the Jewish National Fund, 1946]. After twenty years of service and social justice activism [later "find": hundreds of pamphlets on issues of Labor relations, Zionism, Pioneers in the Land of Israel, Antisemitism, Communism, Socialism, Nazism, Jewish Philanthropy], they move to Santa Monica where Rabbi Sachs serves as the rabbi of Mishkan Tefilah (1952-1964). Elliot studies Political Science and begins teaching in the UC system… and by now I am hooked…
I tell Ms. Sturgess that I need to come and see the collection before I make a decision, but my hunch tells me that there is a very good chance that the collection encompasses the lives of 3 Jewish scholars.
One week later I am standing in the middle of a townhouse in Santa Barbara that is empty, except for book shelves everywhere; entrance, hallway, kitchen, bedrooms, and a whole second floor that is designated as a library. Wall to wall book cases, hundreds of books meticulously protected by wrapped dust jackets, and in the middle of the room – about a hundred boxes ready to go. I ask for permission, and once given, I start pulling out books at random. I glimpse title pages of books dating back to the 1920 & 1930s from Great Britain, European imprints of early Christianity scholarship, an occasional commentary in Hebrew, published in Europe in the 19th century. The "kid in the candy store" feeling intensifies…Ms. Sturgess mentions a guesthouse in the front. I open the door and the studio apartment is filled with more boxes…I'm sold!
Fast forward: It is now the end of April, the first month of my Sabbatical leave. Assisted by my host's, Eric Klein, staff, and by my old friend Liz, we have managed to unpack half of the collection. My initial hunch is proving to be right: I have scanned, researched and processed books and pamphlets that belonged to three generations of this family. More than the large number of items we do not own that will be entered into our collection, I am touched and overwhelmed by the care given to them; from rare imprints dealing with the Spanish Inquisition to Responsa literature published in Eastern Europe, from thinly published warnings against the meaning and the rise of Nazism in Germany AND in the USA, to texts of radio broadcasts urging the British government to honor its Balfour Declaration. From fund-raising programs for Goel Tzedek Memorial Park, to a Hebrew primer for children, published in 1945 and using a young boy's description of the war from inside the Warsaw Ghetto as a vocabulary teaching tool.
For my own "professional development" I have learned that books in Hebrew were published in Johannesburg in the 1850s; that a "Pro-Palestinian Federation of America", whose members were Christian clergy and academics, advocated on behalf of Jews in Europe in the late 1930s and against Anti-Jewish propaganda; that a small anarchist-atheist publishing house, the Haldeman-Julius Company of Girard, Texas, was publishing Big Blue Books and Little Red Books that were affordable to all and promoted social justice.(http://www.haldeman-julius.org/ and http://www.lib.k-state.edu/depts/spec/findaids/pc2004-11.html)…
There is really no defined or planned "ending" to this story. I have 400 more boxes of books to unpack and more to learn about the Sachs family. The Library staff is busy cataloging, processing and conserving these new additions to our collection. We are planning an event that will recognize the Sachs gift and the people that helped to bring it about during the upcoming Jewish Book Month, so stay tuned.
And, if you are curious about the items from this gift that were designated "Special" or "Rare", you can do a keyword search for "sachs collection". And for more pictures, go to our Facebook page.


text:
Should We Terraform?
|Science Fiction Meets Science Fact. 'What are the real possibilities, as well as the potential ramifications, of transforming Mars?' Terraform debaters left to right, Greg Bear , author of such books as "Moving Mars" and "Darwin's Radio."; David Grinspoon , planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute; James Kasting , geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University; Christopher McKay , planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center.; Lisa Pratt , biogeochemist at Indiana University; Kim Stanley Robinson , author of the "Mars Trilogy" ("Red Mars," "Green Mars" and "Blue Mars"); John Rummel , planetary protection officer for NASA; moderator Donna Shirley , former manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Mars Terraforming Debate is co-sponsored by NASA's Astrobiology Magazine, the SciFi Museum (Seattle), and Breakpoint Media.
Donna Shirley: Greg, what are the ethics of exploring Mars?
Greg Bear: You usually talk about ethics within your own social group. And if you define someone as being outside your social group, they're also outside your ethical system, and that's what's caused so much trauma, as we seem to be unable to recognize people who look an awful lot like us as being human beings.
When we go to Mars, we're actually dealing with a problem that's outside the realm of ethics and more in the realm of enlightened self-interest. We have a number of reasons for preserving Mars as it is. If there's life there, it's evolved over the last several billion years, it's got incredible solutions to incredible problems. If we just go there and willy-nilly ramp it up or tamp it down or try to remold it somehow, we're going to lose that information. So that's not to our best interest.
We were talking earlier about having a pharmaceutical expedition to Mars, not just that but a chemical expedition to Mars, people coming and looking for solutions to incredible problems that could occur here on Earth and finding them on Mars. That could generate income unforeseen.
If we talk about ethical issues on a larger scale of how are other beings in the universe going to regard how we treat Mars, that's a question for Arthur C. Clarke to answer, I think. That's been more his purview: the large, sometimes sympathetic eye staring at us and judging what we do.
We really have to look within our own goals and our own heart here. And that means we have to stick within our social group, which at this point includes the entire planet. If we decide that Mars is, in a sense, a fellow being, that the life on Mars, if we discover them – and I think that we will discover that Mars is alive – is worthy of protection, then we have to deal with our own variations in ethical judgment.
|"I've heard a lot of people say, 'Why should we go to Mars, because look at what human beings have done to Earth.'" -David Grinspoon
Image Credit: NASA
The question is, if it's an economic reality that Mars is extraordinarily valuable, will we do what we did in North America and Africa and South America and just go there and wreak havoc? And we have to control our baser interests, which is, as many of us have found out recently, very hard to do in this country. So we have a lot of problems to deal with here, internal problems. Because not everyone will agree on an ethical decision and that's the real problem with making ethical decisions.
Donna Shirley: David, you want to comment on the ethics of terraforming Mars?
David Grinspoon: Well, one comment I've heard about recently, partly in response to the fact that the president has recently proposed new human missions to Mars – of course, that's not terraforming, but it is human activities on Mars – and I've heard a lot of people say, "Why should we go to Mars, because look at what human beings have done to Earth. Look at how badly we're screwing it up. Look at the human role on Earth. Why should we take our presence and go screw up other places?"
It's an interesting question, and it causes me to think about the ethics of the human role elsewhere. What are we doing in the solar system, what should we be doing? But, it's very hard for me to give up on the idea. Maybe because I read too much science fiction when I was a kid, I do have, I have to admit, this utopian view of a long-term human future in space. I think that if we find life on Mars, the ethical question's going to be much more complicated.
But in my view, I think we're going to find that Mars does not have life. We may have fossils there. I think it's the best place in the solar system to find fossils. Of course, I could be wrong about this and I'd love to be wrong about it, and that's why we need to explore. If the methane observation is borne out, it would be, to me, the first sign that I really have to rethink this, that maybe there is something living there under the ice.
|"If the methane observation is borne out, maybe there is something living there under the ice." -David Grinspoon
Image Credit: NASA
But let's assume for a second that Mars really is dead, and we've explored Mars very carefully – and this is not a determination we'll be able to make without a lot more exploration – but assuming it was, then what about this question. Should human beings go to Mars, because do we deserve to, given what we've done to Earth? And to me, the analogy is of a vacant lot versus planting a garden. If Mars is really dead, then to me it's like a vacant lot, where we have the opportunity to plant a garden. I think, in the long run, that we should.
We've heard a lot different possible motivations, economic motivations, or curiosity, but I think ultimately the motivation should be out of love for life, and wanting there to be more life where there's only death and desolation. And so I think that ethically, in the long run, if we really learn enough to say that Mars is dead, then the ethical imperative is to spread life and bring a dead world to life.
Donna Shirley: Jim, we can't prove a negative, so how do we know if there's life or not, if we keep looking and looking and looking. How long should we look? How would we make that decision?
James Kasting: I think Lisa put us on the right track initially. She's studying subsurface life on Earth. If there's life on Mars today, it's subsurface. I think it's deep subsurface, a kilometer or two down. So I think we do need humans on Mars, because we need them up there building big drilling rigs to drill down kilometers depth and do the type of exploration that Lisa and her group is doing on Earth here. I think that's going to take not just decades, but probably a couple of centuries before we can really get a good feel for that.
|Lake Vostok.
Image Credit: NASA
Donna Shirley: Well, I know, John, at Lake Vostok, one of the big issues is, if we drill into it, our dirty drilling rigs are going to contaminate whatever's down there. So how do we drill without worrying about contaminating something if it is there?
John Rummel: Well, you accept a little contamination probabilistically that you can allow operations and still try to prevent it. I mean, basically what we can do is try to prevent that which we don't want to have happen. We can't ever have a guarantee. The easiest way to prevent the contamination of Mars is to stay here in this room. Or someplace close by.
Greg Bear: That's known as abstinence.
John Rummel: [laughs]. I also want to point out it's not necessarily the case that the first thing you want to do on Mars, even if there's no life, is to change it. We don't know the advantages of the martian environment. It's a little bit like the people who go to Arizona for their allergies and start planting crabgrass right off. They wonder why they get that. And it may be that Mars as it is has many benefits. I started working here at NASA Ames as a postdoc with Bob McElroy on controlled ecological life-support systems. There's a lot we can do with martian environments inside before we move out to the environment of Mars and try to mess with it. So I would highly recommend that not only do we do a thorough job with robotic spacecraft on Mars, but we do a thorough job living inside and trying to figure out what kind of a puzzle Mars presents.
|The ALH Meteorite.
Image Credit: NASA/ Johnson Space Center
Donna Shirley: Stan, you dealt with this issue in your book with the Reds versus the Greens. What are some of the ethics of making decisions about terraforming Mars?
Kim Stanley Robinson: Ah, the Reds versus the Greens. This is a question in environmental ethics that has been completely obscured by this possibility of life on Mars.
After the Viking mission, and for about a decade or so, up to the findings of the ALH meteorite, where suddenly martian bacteria were postulated again, we thought of Mars as being a dead rock. And yet there were still people who were very offended at the idea of us going there and changing it, even though it was nothing but rock. So this was an interesting kind of limit case in environmental ethics, because this sense of what has standing. People of a certain class had standing, then all the people had standing, then the higher mammals had standing – in each case it's sort of an evolutionary process where, in an ethical sense, more and more parts of life had standing, and need consideration and ethical treatment from us. They aren't just there to be used.
- See terraforming image gallery and martian topographical renderings
When you get to rock, it seemed to me that there would be very few people (wanting to preserve it). And yet, when I talked about my project, when I was writing it, it was an instinctive thing, that Mars has its own, what environment ethicists would call, "intrinsic worth," even as a rock. It's a pretty interesting position. And I had some sympathy for it, because I like rocky places myself. If somebody proposed irrigating and putting forests in Death Valley, I would think of this as a travesty. I have many favorite rockscapes, and a lot of people do.
So, back and forth between Red and Green, and one of the reasons I think that my book was so long was that it was just possible to imagine both sides of this argument for a very long time. And I never really did reconcile it in my own mind except that it seemed to me that Mars offered the solution itself. If you think of Mars as a dead rock and you think it has intrinsic worth, it should not be changed, then you look at the vertical scale of Mars and you think about terraforming, and there's a 31-kilometer difference between the highest points on Mars and the lowest. I reckoned about 30 percent of the martian surface would stay well above an atmosphere that people could live in, in the lower elevations. So maybe you could have it both ways. I go back and forth on this teeter-totter. But of course now it's a kind of an older teeter-totter because we have a different problem now.
Related Web Pages
Great Terraforming Debate: Part I
Great Terraforming Debate: Part II
Great Terraforming Debate: Part III
Great Terraforming Debate: Part IV
Great Terraforming Debate: Part V
Great Terraforming Debate: Part VI
Great Terraforming Debate: Part VII
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Home
NASA Mars Exploration Program
The Great Debate Series
Astrobiology Magazine: Mars Articles


text:
Our New Build Leicester Team
Recognising that the New Build market is becoming increasingly distinguished, we now have a specialist New Build team providing the most useful advice to our clients in Leicester.
Our New Build Leicester team have access to numerous specialist products, which not all brokers do, specifically designed to new build properties.
We are familiar with all of the requirements and laws around new build property and have an intimate understanding of Government backed schemes such as Help to Buy and Shared Ownership.
Our New Build Leicester Team understand developer's expectations of their purchasers in terms of their deadlines. Our New Build mortgage advice will ensure that your mortgage application is handled in the most effective and efficient way to secure the property you want.
As a firm we have established relationships with a number of developers varying from smaller local and regional companies to the larger national house builders, and are the broker of choice they use to qualify and advise their purchasers.
Help to Buy
The government has created 'help to buy' scheme to help hard working people get on to the property ladder, there are various forms of help to buy but the equity schemes are only available with participating new home developers.
Help to Buy Equity Loan
With a Help to Buy: Equity Loan the Government lends you up to 20% of the cost of your newly built home, so you'll only need a 5% cash deposit and a 75% mortgage to make up the rest. You won't be charged loan fees on the 20% loan for the first five years of owning your home.
Call us now on 01249 474952 to find about more about securing your New Build home or contact us using the form below.


text:
As we know from previous posts, the International Bottled Water Association has made multiple efforts to save face in the wake of environmentalist criticism. Two recent lawsuits, one against Eco Canteen, and one against ZeroWater, may be the organization's most desperate attempts yet. In fact, these might even deserve a spot next to Nestle Waters as some of the most ridiculous lawsuits of all time.
IBWA has accused both companies of making "false and misleading claims" in their advertisements. These include the claim that plastic bottles contain harmful chemicals like BPA that leech into water, or that bottled water is unsafe and the act of recycling single-use bottles releases toxic substances into the environment. IBWA was victorious in its lawsuit against Eco Canteen, a distributor of reusable, stainless-steel water bottles. ZeroWater, maker of a 5-stage ion exchange water filter, has agreed to settle peacefully by retracting any and all false claims.
Perhaps the IBWA simply can't handle all of the bad press it has received from bottled water critics – which could explain their recent back-to-back release of several online videos that advocate bottled water as a "safe and healthy alternative." While it is certainly an alternative to less healthy sugary beverages, some might argue that the presentation of bottled water as "safe and healthy" in and of itself is just as "false and misleading" as some of the advertising claims made by the defendants in both lawsuits. A quick glance at our list of the "Top 10 Most Disturbing Things in Our Water" reveals that not all bottled water is as "safe and healthy" as companies claim. (Pay special attention to #5 and #1 on this list, and you'll see what we mean.)
In defense of the IBWA, it is true that the claims made by ZeroWater and Eco Canteen were indeed misleading. Though BPA and phthalates are used in the manufacture of many reusable plastic bottles, they are not contained in the single-use varieties. Moreover, not all bottled water is unsafe or unhealthy, and it is certainly healthier than soda. Still, we can't discount the negative environmental effects of the tons of plastic waste that go unrecycled each year – of which, single-use plastic water bottles are a part (albeit small). Nor can we ignore the ridiculous costs associated with this supposedly more convenient product. Bottled water is expensive, and in many cases is nothing more than purified tap water – a natural commodity that can easily be obtained from the kitchen sink with the use of a faucet water filter, or a reverse osmosis filter, if you're looking for more advanced filtration. It's not rocket science; mere common sense will persuade the average consumer that filtered tap water is a safe alternative that is both tasty and eco-friendly.
Frankly, such desperation on the part of the IBWA just makes me sad. Who's next? Annie Leonard?


text:
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Another left wing news website has issued a retraction pertaining to attempts to assign blame to Alex Jones for being an influence in the tragic shooting of three Pittsburgh police officers on Saturday.
The Daily Kos had joined the chorus of mostly left wing blogs and news sites in following the ADL's attack on Alex Jones, Infowars and Prisonplanet over the appalling incident at the weekend.
Now, following an earlier clarification from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a retraction from the Raw Story website, a Daily Kos contributor with the handle fcvaguy, has added the following update to his original piece:
Based on a correction/retraction on RawStory, I have reason to doubt the information reported by the ADL with respect to Alex Jones and Infowars or PrisonPlanet. In fact, evidence points to the contrary; that Alex Jones has spoken strongly against hate speech similar to that spoken by Richard Poplawski. Therefore, in fairness, I've removed any references in this diary with respect to Alex Jones and the websites Infowars or PrisonPlanet.
It now follows that the ADL should also issue a retraction of their initial comments, the original source from which other blogs and websites took their lead.
Other notable blogs such as Little Green Footballs and Media Matters should also follow the example set by Raw Story and Daily Kos in issuing retractions.
As we announced in our previous article, we will consider taking further action should full and frank retractions not be forthcoming.
The Daily Kos writer himself states in his opening sentence:
"Some of us over the past few days have been working together "sleuthing" the internet for anything related to Richard Poplawski."
What this translates as is that he and others slapped together whatever they could find from googling "Poplawski" in an effort to bolster their own preconceived notions and agendas. Unfortunately that does not constitute journalism and in sensitive cases like this one it very often leads to slander and libel.
Upon discovering a handful of comments previously posted by Poplawski in the comments sections of our website, these individuals immediately played fast and loose with the truth as part of an orchestrated smear campaign.
They attempted to to classify Infowars as an outlet for "hate speech", a notion that was instantly discredited (without us even having to respond) by the fact that the ADL's own website admitted that Richard Poplawski held views that opposed those of Alex Jones and his dedicated staff of writers.
In reality, Poplawski was just another of the throngs of Neo-Nazis that attack us on a daily basis.
Besides, should we now go into every murderers' house and obsessively investigate what books they read, and then blame the murder on that?
This whole lamentable situation highlights how an advanced culture of blame has gotten out of control and is being actively used by some groups and so called media outlets as a way to dismiss diversity of opinion and instigate a crack down on free speech.
The Daily Kos has even had the temerity to flip the situation and attack Glenn Beck a second time, for attempting to respond to the accusations uncovered by the "research".
"Because it's all about him, right? How self-absorbed can one man possibly be?" Jed Lewison writes.
No Jed, it has nothing to do with Glenn Beck. You were the ones who attempted to make it about Glenn Beck, so don't then go blaming Glenn Beck for responding to your accusations of blame for a multiple murder.
And no, I am not defending or agreeing with Glenn Beck, this is not about Glenn Beck, in case that needs explaining to you AGAIN.
No rational person can condone the views or actions of Richard Poplawski, but to attempt to use such deplorable events as a way of attacking those you do not agree with is beyond pitiful.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!


text:
Waterwatch Data Portal
Hopkins River Catchment Glenelg-Hopkins Water Authority|Hopkins River Basin
In the Glenelg-Hopkins region, there are three basins. These are the Glenelg River, Hopkins River and Portland Coast basins. The Hopkins River basin contains the Hopkins River catchment
|Sub catchment name
|Ball Creek
|Catchment name
|Hopkins River
|Monitoring organisations
ISC Reaches ISC Map Portal
|Reach details
Active Sites 0
|Site details
Catchment Snapshot
The catchment snapshot uses site samples to show the median values for the period over each reach of the river.
More details can be found in the Index of Stream Condition report relevant to this region
More details can be found in the Index of Stream Condition report relevant to this region
Chart filters
Reach location
Reach values
|Total sites in reach
|Total visits in period
All content, files, data and images provided by the Waterwatch Data Portal and Gallery are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License
Content is made available to be used in any way, and should always attribute Waterwatch and www.vic.waterwatch.org.au


text:
How to Help HER Foundation
Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) has an incredible impact on the lives of those who experience it, as well as those around them. Many feel a desire to help others survive this very difficult time in life. If you want to help our organization and/or support our mission, there are several ways you can do that. You have taken the first step by educating yourself on HG so you can increase other's awareness and effectively support those you know with HG.
Other Ways You Can Help:
- Sign-up your health professional on our Referral
Network which includes health professionals who are up-to-date on HG management, and provide compassionate, patient-centered
- Print out our online
brochures and/or survival guide for
distribution to health professionals and hospitals in your area.
New brochures are added periodically.
- Find out about News & Events by signing up for our News Alerts.
- Refer others, including health professionals, to our site for reliable HG information and research.
- If you have any special skills that you could offer on a volunteer basis, please
fill out this volunteer survey.
- Refer others to our site to
help increase awareness and interest. See our Activism page for more.
- Network with service-oriented companies who are
willing to offer discounts to families facing HG to ease
their financial burden.
- Participate in our HG Surveys, current
poll, and other available research studies. See our Research
Page for
more links.
- Support our efforts for publication, research and education. If
you have contacts in these areas, or know of opportunities, please refer
them to our site or have them contact us directly.
- Contact your local
media such
as TV health reporters, pregnancy and parenting publications, and radio
talk shows. Tell
them about your experience with HG and refer them to our foundation.
- Participate in our online discussion areas and social media groups to support others
or share your story. See
our Hyperemesis Discussion
Area & Facebook Group supporting moms & discussing HG kids.
- Volunteer to visit and/or offer support to another family in your area
facing HG. See our Volunteer
- Check our site regularly for latest
on HG, and our Facebook page & other social media pages for upcoming events and activities.
- Link to Us. You may place this image on your site with a link to our site, www.HelpHER.org.
Updated on: Aug. 17, 2019


text:
Choose your hosting plan
Chester web hosting plans
* All hosting plans require an annual subscription and all plans renew at the same price.
£6.00 /month
5 GB Storage
Intel® Xeon®
7 day backups
100GB bandwidth
150,000 i nodes
99.99% uptime
£10 /month
20 GB Storage
Intel® Xeon®
7 day backups
Unlimited bandwidth
200,000 i nodes
99.99% uptime
£20.00 /month
Unlimited Storage
Intel® Xeon®
7 day backups
Unlimited bandwidth
250,000 i nodes
99.99% uptime
We offer various cloud web hosting plans to those who want to self manage their own website and to those who have a website managed with us
We have one of the fastest hosting platforms on the planet and are very proud of our infrastructure. Our Chester hosting environment is very secure and uses the latest high-performance scalable cloud technology. For bigger plans, a VPS or dedicated server, please contact us.
Security & reliability of Chester cPanel hosting
Overlooking matters of security can end up compromising your website brand and ranking, more than 40,000 websites get hacked a day. We are hands-on and will quarantine any malware found before it spreads to other websites.
We also block the IPs to our shared servers from frequent failed login or brute force attempts. In case you attempt with invalid login credentials your IP also would get blocked and will not able to access your website, emails and the server itself until its unblocked.
Daily full backup
Daily backup is taken for your entire hosting account (150,000 Files/Inodes Limit) including mysql DB, emails etc, these backups are kept for 7 days at 2 different locations. You can download or restore the backup from the previous 7 days.
Lightning-fast loading times
Speed is everything. The faster the site, more traffic and conversions and more income to your business. You will notice the difference when you host your website with us.
WHM cPanel control panel + Softaculous
The web hosting industry's most reliable hosting Control panel platform of choice cPanel website. One-Click Auto Installs with Softaculous 350+great scripts including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento etc.
Full support
We provide 24/7, 365 days a year customer support through our support ticket system. We are very proactive to solve issues even before you know.
Rapid SSL certificates
A Rapid SSL certificate os available to order here for £70 per year.
Our customer experiences
Website design Chester
Your beautiful new website is a few clicks away
Our Chester website design specialists will build a beautiful mobile-friendly website that reflects your industry while following your lead and input. We build on WordPress, the most popular and flexible website building platform and CMS (Content Management System) there is. It's easy to modify or add content to your website as your business grows, and we can help with that if the need arises.


text:
What is the Hackers Database? From the FAQ:
What is the main goal of the Hacker Database? (Known as the HDB)
The HDB is a community oriented database intended to document hackers, phreakers, and people who have influenced the realm of computer security. One major goal is to get factual documentation concerning people who are in the database. Another goal is to get rumors (unconfirmed possible facts) to be listed in the rumors section of their entry. If there are entries or information that somebody would like to see in the database, feel free to contact me or cisc0ninja with the information and your sources and we will be more than happy to make it a part of the database. If there is information that you need censored (such as your full real name) you will need to contact RaT in order to get those changes made.


text:
Our human resources commitments
A. Recruit
Recruitment is above all about people meeting people. We take special care to make sure these meetings are rich and diverse, providing opportunities to discover talents. We believe that the diversity of our teams is indispensable to our creativity.
B. Integrate and transmit
Transmission of savoir-faire is part of our DNA. Since 1828, five generations of Guerlain Perfumers have passed on the torch of creativity. We believe an intimate knowledge of the House is essential to inspiring pride and success, which is why we attach such importance to welcoming new staff.
C. Develop
Exploring your future means imagining and working together to craft a custom-tailored career plan, thanks to collaborative input by managers, employees and HR staff. Demanding expectations and positive support ensure that your talent thrives as you invent your own itinerary. Guerlain and the LVMH Group offer rich and vast horizons for growth.
D. Train
Training is a tremendous lever for skills development as you advance along your career path. We continually help you enrich your competencies and transmit the remarkable savoir-faire that makes Guerlain unique. This includes our in-house training academy, where retail teams around the world sharpen their product and service expertise.
E. Communicate
Our people are the prime ambassadors of Guerlain's uniqueness and wealth. Our internal communication spans the globe, sharing meaning, providing perspective, and celebrating our successes.
F. Compensate
Our compensation policy is consistent, transparent and fair in all our markets. This policy also plays a key role in rewarding top performers, balancing demanding expectations and positive support.